<p>momgeh50, my D and I could have written the same post after visiting one midwest LAC last summer during an open house event...add the smelly bathrooms near the auditorium and admissions office at 8:30 in the morning...yuck! We were willing to grant the lawns last summers' drought until we saw the grounds 1 hr. west the next week at another school. I'd bet it was the same school given the list of schools you're more favorably impressed with. Our experience exactly.</p>
<p>My daughter just visited 4 schools this week during private college week. She loved Macalester and University of St. Thomas. Carleton she liked, but decided Mac was more her. The 4th school has a good reputation, but my daughter just couldn't see herself spending a lot of time there. Our tour guide was not good at all. The school apologized ahead of time for poor tour guides. The campus was pretty on the outside, but the inside of the buildings looked like they could use updating and weren't in very good shape. This visit did not leave my daughter enthusiastic at all, which was a shame as it is a good school. That first impression is so important when the student is comparing other schools to it.</p>
<p>I think I saw one of those old sofas at Caltech. It looked comfortable to me. Stanford looked antiseptic. Too much like a high end hotel.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I bought S a great sofa for Caltech. I'm sure when he leaves, it will take its place among the hall sofas. Also gave denim chairs etc. Did you know they redid all the old dorms? The 3 newer ones are to be destroyed and rebuilt in the style of the original 4. As shabby as the furniture was, my S's room had a bed, big red sofa, dresser, end table floating in air--an engineering coupe. One thinks they are in Hoggswart when in the original dorms, with alleys and staircases that you have to get off of and move onto another. Shabby when S first saw it, but ever so homey</p>
<p>I agree with all of you who have been turned off by initial impressions of colleges - and would like to add my own peeve about colleges which clearly want certain students and then drop the ball by passing them off to poorly matched hosts, etc. There's a story in The Gatekeepers about a highly sought after student at Wesleyan who was taken to a sexually explicit event by her host that undid all the hard work of her admissions counselor there. My child had a similar experience at a midwest LAC. She received almost a full ride based on merit and, having not previously visited, eagerly signed up for their admitted students weekend. The weekend involved three days and two nights of non-stop activities with current students, other admitted students, faculty, etc. It ended up being canceled the day it was supposed to start due to weather conditions and, b/c of timing during April, was not rescheduled. So my undeterred DD showed up two days later for a visit. She was paired with a host with whom she had nothing in common - someone who was not at all social, a science major whose main extracurricular activity was bible studies. She lived in a single room in upperclass housing, did not even know her neighbors and - the clincher - went to sleep at 8:30 p.m. leaving my daughter stuck in the room with nothing to do. Other than attending a class the next day, there were no scheduled activities - not even a meeting with an admissions counselor. Although my DD had originally planned to stay for two nights, she got the heck out of Dodge as soon as she could and never looked back. (I suggested she try a second night with a different host, but the damage had already been done.) While the school may have been an excellent fit for her, it cheated both itself and her out of a reasonable chance to know.</p>
<p>The college that I ended up going to in the 70's I had been to for a weekend, but the girls who hosted me were so ODD that I wondered if I should really go there. There were so many other things about the college that I liked that I went for it, and I absolutely loved it. I'm just glad I didn't assume that everyone there was like those particular girls! They were the pits.</p>
<p>
[quote]
At the other extreme, we visited Johns Hopkins and the campus was so eerily clean that it seemed fake. I don't know how they do it.
[/quote]
It's funny how different people can form different impressions of the same campus. My S will be attending JHU as a transfer next year. We visited it prior to his freshman application season (he ended up not applying at that time). We all thought the campus was very attractive. But I took a walk through one of the academic buildings not on tour (can't even remember why I did; probably lost LOL). It was kind of drab and a bit shopworn and unkempt. I didn't like how it felt, but brushed it aside. Glad I did.</p>
<p>I'm really not sure how to evaluate schools on the basis of decor/appeal of the Admissions offices etc. I must admit I love an attractive place; it's just my style to care about aesthetics. OTOH, I'm acutely aware that big $$ go into "marketing" a school, and fancy admissions offices are part of this. Oftentime, they seem to be the most elegant places on campus - we've seen fireplaces, etc. etc. Not sure that's where I want to see my $47K+- go. Not sure how much lower that $47K might be if it weren't for the marketing - wouldn't mind finding out though ;).</p>
<p>Per Student Endowment</p>
<p>are you talking about oberlin? cos if so, i totally agree, rundown campus and the hippy kids all smell like ****+pot.</p>
<p>It's a different story with academic and administrative buildings, but with dorms, one student's trash is another student's treasure. What one student (or parent) sees as run down might be seen by another as homey and modifiable to the student's tastes. What one sees as clean and pretty might be seen by another as sterile and fake.</p>
<p>Even with the academic/admin buildings, what one visitor might describe as, say, ugly and industrial might be described by another as exciting and more concerned about functionality than aesthetics.</p>
<p>Is there any truth to this list:</p>
<p>We went to one college last summer for a tour. Again...the exterior landscaping issues did not bother us as they were clearly replanting plants, grass and shrubs. What DID bother all of us (we were with another family) was the interior spots they CHOSE to show us on the tour...broken window blinds, broken desks, dirty (and I mean DIRTY...) carpets, broken chalkboard. Why would that particular classroom be chosen for a tour?? It had to make you wonder if that was the best. Seemed to us that they should have or could have chosen a place where things were in better repair. Neither of our students chose to apply there.</p>
<p>I can't agree at all with Skidmore being on the dorms like palaces list. When we visited not only were the rooms really small and plain, but the carpeting was disgusting. All I could thing about was what all must have spilled on them over the years. On the other hand I know what people are talking about when they say a place can be too perfect. My husband was really turned off by Middlebury and how "rich" it looked. He felt like the money was going to the wrong things.</p>
<p>My S chose one of the oldest dorms on his campus. It had just recently had air conditioning put in but the rooms,bathrooms, common rooms,etc. were still pretty vintage. Dorm was built in the late '40's. The reasons he chose it (and loved it) was it were it was the most central to classes, had the largest rooms and windows,had a sink in the room (which the newer dorms lacked) and was only 4 floors(get to know more kids in smaller setting and no elevator to wait on).<br>
It's a freshman only dorm so he can't stay for next year but is recommending it to all rising freshmen coming from our h.s.</p>
<p>Has anyone here seen Stanford's dorms? I'm curious because I'm going there next year.</p>
<p>"Has anyone here seen Stanford's dorms? I'm curious because I'm going there next year"</p>
<p>They wouldn't show us a room, though I think there might be photos on their website. The dining hall looked like the rest of Stanford - sort of llike an upscale hotel. I'd actually have preferreds something older looking. :-)</p>
<p>"Did you know they redid all the old dorms?"</p>
<p>Yes, they were still under construction when we visited. I have mixed feelings about redoing the newer dorms. While I love the old dorms, they don't seem that bad, at least they are in scale with the rest of the campus. I just wish they'd tear down Milliken Library and put up the big turquoise dome that was part of Goodhue's original campus design. </p>
<p>BTW my husband went to grad school at Caltech so I'm pretty familiar with the place though the grad student experience is quite different. I think Caltech has one of the prettiest campuses in the world (top ten anyway) - even the ugly building from the 80s when we were there, looked okay now that the trees are grown.</p>
<p>Thanks mathmom. I always like to know about places not from how they look in 'postcard pictures' but from real life day to day impressions.</p>